


Brooklyn in the Mists

by paperiuni



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Catarina Loss, Background Jace Wayland, Background Luke Garroway, Battle Couple, Case Fic, Earning Their Happy Ending, F/F, Fae & Fairies, Gen, Lightwood Siblings, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Episode AU: s02e20 Beside Still Water, Slow Burn, Warlocks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-08-29 22:00:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16752253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperiuni/pseuds/paperiuni
Summary: Beware the snows of November.Valentine is dead, but New York is far from peaceful. When Magnus vanishes in mysterious circumstances, Alec, still heartsick from their breakup, has little choice but to look for him. Even as they join Alec's mission, Clary has to forge her path as a Shadowhunter, and Izzy wrestles with fears and hopes of her own.The search and rescue will lead them far beyond the city they know—and, perhaps, to a warlock who has no desire to be found.(Canon divergence AU from 2.20, with slow burn Malec and Clizzy.)





	1. The Call

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Welcome to my newest unwise labour of love that I really wanted to start in November for thematic reasons. The basics:
> 
> 1) We're in the canon AU where the timeline makes sense. For purposes of this fic, seasons 1 and 2 happened over months, not weeks.  
> 2) The Seelie Court kiss in 2.14 happens, but Clary & Jace don't get together. This will be explored from Clary's side.  
> 3) Magnus and Alec don't get back together in 2.20.  
> 4) This fic uses elements from season 3A, but delays the main plot with Lilith. These elements will become clear.  
> 5) THIS FIC HAS TWO MAIN PAIRINGS with about equal page time: Magnus & Alec deal with their mess, burn and pine and perish (note the "Angst With A Happy Ending" tag), and Clary & Izzy do the friends to lovers thing. Eventually. We've got a plot in here, too.
> 
> Bounteous thanks to everyone who read through my draft so far and yelled in an encouraging way: [jillyfae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jillyfae/), [enkelimagnus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/enkelimagnus/), and [Accal1a](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Accal1a/) chief among them. ♥
> 
>  **Content Notes** : Canon-typical action violence, horror elements. Any warnings will be given in specific chapters.
> 
> There's no fixed posting schedule, but I'm aiming for at least twice a month.
> 
> I'm on twitter @[juneofthepen](https://twitter.com/juneofthepen) and on tumblr @[poemsfromthealley](https://poemsfromthealley.tumblr.com/). If you want to tweet about this fic, the hashtag is #bitmfic <3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party after the near end of the world takes an unexpected turn.

*

Isabelle ran toward the end of the world as she knew it along the twisting shore of Lake Lyn. The brilliant, unforgiving light through the trees shone steady: an angel—the Angel—had taken visible form above the waters of the lake.

She kept point in their group of three, aware that as long as she heard two sets of steps behind her, they had time. Alec's rapid breathing was as familiar as her own heartbeat. Magnus's took on a more macabre significance; at any moment he might—collapse? Scream? Cease to be without so much as a noise of pain? There was no room in her head for imagining how the Downworlders would die if Valentine could speak his wish.

Die as Jace had. As Clary might have. She pushed both thoughts away. They hadn't seen any sign of the Gard soldiers supposedly stationed in the forest.

The beacon the Angel made lit the footpath she followed, ducking under branches and skirting rocks and roots. It wasn't far now. It might just take an arrow from Alec, if they could catch Valentine in the middle of the summoning. How long would it take? Was it like a warlock ritual, consuming his concentration? Something to draw out for the sick pleasure of it?

Voices rang through the trees, too distant to be clear. The sonorous hum of the Angel speaking. A small human voice responding.

"Is that—" The thin hope in Alec's cut question nearly cracked her own answer, too.

"Clary," she said. "It sounds like Clary."

"We'd best hurry," Magnus said, almost conversational, and flicked a tangle of roots off the path before Izzy even thought to look for a detour.

Then, the air shivering like water, the light withdrew, pulling the shadows back from where they'd receded before the unearthly display.

They hurried out of the trees toward a cove in the shoreline. A body lay in the trampled grass, not far from a pair of figures huddled into each other. Clary had her face buried in Jace's shoulder, and he held her with a mixture of desperation and disbelief Izzy would puzzle over later.

He was very much alive.

Alec's muffled "Jace?" broke them apart, both of them turning up startled, blood-spattered faces. There were moments when Isabelle knew her brothers could have parted solid rock to reach each other; she watched them mutter hasty questions and answers and fall together in a hard hug when words stopped being enough.

"Well," Magnus said. "Out of all the twist endings this catastrophe could've had, I'll take this one."

She hugged him then, stifling a choked laugh into his jacket. He hadn't died. Jace hadn't died. Clary had spoken to the angel Raziel, and now stood alone beside Alec and Jace, blood in her hair and down her cheeks and the front of her clothes. Valentine was dead at their feet.

Izzy turned, her throat thick with the sight of Clary. Any crisp words of comfort failed to spark. _You're alive,_ she thought, and for a long silent second the thought was wide as the sky.

"Biscuit." Magnus spoke gently. "Come here."

Clary did, though lingering shock seemed to hinder her steps. Izzy reached to fold her into the hug, too, pressing her head into Clary's cheek and feeling her shake, marrow-deep, the shiver forced down like a secret that couldn't be shared.

*

 _Clarissa Morgenstern_ , the Angel had called her in his—its? their?—inscrutable voice. As if a few crude persuasions by a man she'd never known could outweigh years of protection and sacrifice by the mother she'd loved.

And he was dead now, her father, whose name Raziel had put to her. Her mother was dead. Her brother was dead.

She, on the other hand, was not.

In the first twelve hours after Lake Lyn, Clary dreamed of nothing. No coy visions or even normal nightmares, just a black she sank into like a stone. She woke to Simon's voice and his hand on her shoulder, and had barely clutched it back before falling asleep for eight more hours.

He'd left a text for her which started: _"Yay we survived" party at Hunters Moon tonight. Be there?_

She appreciated the question mark. After showering, she thumbed him a reply: _Wouldn't miss it._

A decent slice of the Institute had been similarly invited, along with a flurry of Downworlders dense enough to fill every chair and table at the bar. The Shadowhunters skewed young and the Downworlders werewolf, but a motley of Seelies and even a warlock or two were sprinkled into the crowd. Apparently the Queen of All Faerie siding with Valentine didn't deter some of her subjects from revelling at his death, and nobody argued their presence.

That should probably be filed under the finer points of how the Shadow World peoples intermingled, which she was still reading up on. Maybe the Seelies were doing their opportunistic thing of cozying up to the latest victor, or else they'd spotted a party and seized the moment without a more complicated motive.

If it was the latter, she envied them. Though she'd slept almost a full day, she felt hollowed out with exhaustion. She put on a smile for Magnus when their eyes met in the crowd, and leaned into Simon's side when they bumped into each other by the counter and said a few long-needed words about friendship. When he slipped away to Maia, Clary stared into his wake for a second before she remembered.

Somehow in all this mess Simon had found the time to sort things out with Maia. It made him happy. It seemed to make Maia happy. That was all Clary needed to know, at this point. _I need you in my world, Simon Lewis_ , she'd said to him, and her world was a wide, weird place these days.

Turning, she found Isabelle shored up by her shoulder. "Oh, hey."

"Hey, yourself." Izzy's smile shone in a way Clary was sure her own didn't. "Pass me a glass?"

"Sure." She pinched a poured glass of sparkling wine, remains of Luke's earlier toast, from the bar top. Looking at Izzy seemed to lift her mood. Most of the people she loved in the world were in this space, worn out from fighting, bubbly with new hope. She wanted to take them as they were now and commit them to memory, paste them over how they'd been a day ago, on the edge of calamity.

They clinked glasses. The sparkling wine was still too sweet.

"Is it just me or does everything feel a bit unreal?" Clary said, like she'd wanted to say to Simon. Like this was a confession she needed to make.

"Definitely not just you." Izzy shrugged one shoulder. "Maybe you've got more reason than most of us, but everyone's catching their breath."

"Now that they can."

"I was gonna say 'things will go back to normal now', but that doesn't mean much to you, does it?" Izzy paused, her breezy facade slipping. "You came in and we fell straight into the hunt for Valentine. You've never seen the Institute at normal."

"Like when there's not a new Head every other month?" Clary shimmied up onto a bar stool, patting the one next to it. Izzy followed, their knees knocking together as they settled.

"That helps. While you were sleeping, Alec got about thirty messages commending his Institute on _swift action against the traitor_ "—Izzy adopted a pompous posture—"so I think we're good."

"Don't remind me." Clary scrunched her nose. "Somebody already said they're gonna want to talk to me. Alicante officials, I mean."

"No avoiding that." Sympathy softened Izzy's face. "I'll go with you if you want."

"Would they let you? They don't seem the type to compromise."

"They like us a lot right now. Besides, I've got a bulletproof _do it for your baby sister_ look. Works on Alec every time."

"You think?" Clary glanced over to where Alec was talking to Luke, the line of his back looking relaxed for once. In the confusion of the last few days, she'd barely gathered that he'd had a falling out with Magnus. She should ask Izzy about that. The thought of _asking Izzy_ felt wonderfully, ridiculously normal.

"I _know_ ," Izzy said, leaning closer, though the look she gave her brother bordered on pensive. Izzy's bare shoulder pressed a warm circle into Clary's arm through the fabric of her dress. Her heart stuttered, then calmed.

"Okay." Her voice dropped. "If you're there, I can do anything."

Izzy nudged her cheek into Clary's shoulder, smothered a soft laugh there. "It's a deal."

*

It was only after the second bottle of beer that Alec found himself starting to unwind. That still seemed weird. He didn't drink to relax—he wore himself out in the training room instead—but you didn't date Magnus Bane for any length of time and not develop a certain tolerance.

The beer did nothing to blunt the twist of _that_ thought in his gut. He'd pass out from inebriation before it would.

"Sorry," he muttered to Luke, who was a jovial three sheets to the wind and about to launch into another story Alec only had half a mind for. It wasn't the stories; it was him. "I should—I had—"

Luke followed the line of his gaze to its damning conclusion: across the room, Magnus was leaned into a corner next to the bar top. He said something to a Seelie with bright leaves in her hair, who laughed, bell-like, in reply.

"Yeah, of course," Luke said. "Go on, get. With you two mooning in here at the same time, I gotta start worrying about the youngsters wolfing out indoors."

Alec spluttered, not so covertly, into his bottle. Luke clapped him on the shoulder and turned away.

Magnus didn't look like he was _mooning._ Maybe he rested his weight on the wall more heavily than usual, maybe his colors were a bit muted and his smile a bit slow, but he seemed—better. At ease.

Alec might well destroy that ease by going closer. Somebody drifted past Magnus, blocking Alec's view of him, and Alec realized he was staring. Again. Unsubtly, since even Luke had noticed.

Their struggle against Valentine was over, and so was the looming threat of the Soul-Sword. A search crew was scouring Lake Lyn for the Mortal Instruments, probably at the very moment. It was done.

He and Magnus were done. All else fell in behind that fact. Alec pressed his eyes shut and watched the afterimages of the bar lights pulse in his vision. Better not to think about the closing of the rift, seeing Magnus stumble onto the sand, about Magnus's hands catching him when Jace disappeared from his awareness, when the rune faded from his skin.

Out of all the near misses recently—Max, Jace—this one remained. Magnus loved him but couldn't have him. Because he hadn't trusted Magnus.

Or did averting the end of the world change the situation? How did you ask? How did you fall out of love knowing it was still answered?

 _Who_ did you ask? Izzy was around somewhere. Alec touched his quiescent _parabatai_ rune, though he could tell Jace was close, tense and wary, folded into himself. Neither of them would probably be a viable source of romantic advice right now.

His world being as it was, that left one person.

He blinked his eyes open. Magnus was gone from the nook by the wall.

*

His magic seemed slow to return. Magnus kept catching himself at little gestures: a flex of his hand, a swirl of the fingers, just to feel reality ripple in answer. As if to reassure himself that it was just a temporary drain of his reserves. He hadn't depleted them so completely in at least a decade.

Around him, the party went on. There was the old pull to step up and take the room, brief as a daydream. Not tonight, not even for this rare occasion of Downworlders and Shadowhunters knocking shoulders with good cheer. Luke and Maia's presence had drawn the werewolves; most of the Seelies were free folk who chose to live in the hidden corners of the mortal world rather than swear fealty to the queen.

He knew quite a few of them. When they nodded at him, he nodded back. They were wild and fickle and as quick to double-cross you as any fae of the Court, but they'd chosen their freedom.

Tonight of all times, he envied them that.

He told the messenger apart from the other Seelies at the first glance. The oak leaves in her hair shone, glossy yet red, among the more drab and varied garb of the free fae. She moved through the clusters of people with sinuous purpose.

"Her Majesty sends word," she said. Magnus didn't straighten, didn't set aside his glass. But he did nod acknowledgment. Unease laid its sharp fingertips against his spine.

"She sends her word, and her word is your bond, Magnus Bane."

The air cut his throat as he inhaled, heady with the reek of rotting leaves, the darkness under deep roots. The shadows swayed green at his feet.

He cocked an eyebrow, smoothly, given the circumstances. "May I finish my drink?"

The Seelie laughed, clear and galling. "I'm just here to deliver the message. The rest is up to you."

"Well, then," he said. "Give your lady my humblest regards. I'll get to work."

She left. He drank his martini, sip by sip, until he tasted only the drink and smelled only the bar. Conversations bubbled on around him. A group of enterprising werewolves were making room for an impromptu dance floor. He saw Isabelle pull Clary off a bar stool and toward the cleared space, Maia and Simon following them, and swallowed a wistful smile.

Safety for them all: that'd been achieved, at least in the short term. The Clave was in turmoil; the old structures of power had hardly broken, but they'd shifted. The time was ripe for a push.

He drew himself back from that venue of thought before it reached its inevitable end point. He'd done his best to avoid Alec's dark head in the crowd. A conundrum, given how tall he was, made worse by the hollow yearning.

Magnus had another problem, and a more pressing one. The clock above the counter ticked a minute past the full hour.

A fluttering flame passed by his ear, and he opened his hand to receive the fire message. It read, in blue ballpoint pen: _November 30th has come_.

He folded the note, put down his glass, and slid away from the celebration.

*

Over the background noise, Alec heard the thump of a door. The back door, leading to the alley behind the bar.

If Magnus had wanted to make a discreet exit, he had his reasons. They might be as simple as not wanting to open a portal in a thronged room. Alec stared at the spot where Magnus had stood and felt slightly out of his mind. He was—not drunk. Fuzzy. Probably more suggestible to the impulse to go after the man who'd broken up with him than was good for him.

 _With you two mooning in here_ , Luke had said, as if Alec wasn't alone with his stupid, inescapable longing.

"Fuck it," he said, under his breath. They'd won. The circumstances had changed. Or they hadn't, and Magnus still didn't want him, and he had no way of knowing which was the truth.

He shrugged through a giggly cadre of Seelies and Shadowhunters, no doubt endeared to each other by the bottle of cheap red they were passing among themselves, and strode through the back of the bar and to the door. His fingers seemed to tremble against the knob.

 _If it's still no, at least you'll know._ It'd be something. What he'd _do_ with the knowledge was a question for later.

He opened the door.

The alley was empty. No Magnus, or even the telltale trace of a portal that would've disturbed the loose debris gathered along the walls of the buildings. It'd felt like rain earlier, a cool October shower, but the air was harsh on his skin. His breath huffed out, wisping white.

Somebody had stepped through a puddle on the asphalt, leaving a wet footprint glistening under the paper lanterns strung across the alley.

No. Not wet, but frozen. Alec crouched, measuring the print against his hand, when he saw the coat of rime that ran across the surface of the puddle.

Magnus had come through here, on foot, at a run, minutes ago. The frost had formed after that.

As Alec looked up along the tracks that blurred into the grime of the alley, slow fat flakes of snow began tumbling down between the lanterns, clumping on his lashes, melting on his bare skin.

The temperature was still dropping.

*


	2. In the Lonesome November

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luke is the bringer of bad news, and an investigation team of three is formed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on twitter @[juneofthepen](https://twitter.com/juneofthepen) and on tumblr @[poemsfromthealley](https://poemsfromthealley.tumblr.com/). I'm always happy to talk fic & Shadowhunters!

*

October slid into a sullen November of shortening days and chilly, cloud-lit nights. The Institute settled shakily back into its routines.

Halfway through the month, the Council of High Warlocks sent Alec a short and courteous notification that Magnus Bane would be dismissed as the High Warlock of Brooklyn, and a temporary replacement would take over his duties until a vote could be arranged.

That was the closest Alec came to calling Magnus.

He sat with the fire message in one hand, his phone in the other, paralyzed by fury and indecision. Sat until Jace came in the door with worry on his face and put a hand behind Alec's head, sighing into his hair. _I'm sorry, brother. Sorry your heart hurts like mine._

Things were weird with Jace, too, but Alec was grateful for him. There was the obvious weirdness: Lake Lyn, the vanishing of the parabatai rune, the way Jace had withdrawn after that. Jace said he could not remember the injury itself. That was probably the truth, and still it chafed. Then there was the resonance of Jace's lingering—and unanswered—feelings for Clary, who was throwing herself into training with such ferocity that she definitely had something to get away from.

Alec didn't want to understand both of them as well as he did, both the gnawing, stubborn attachment and the desire to drown it. The dash of bravery at the Hunter's Moon that had sent him after Magnus had been his last. What would he have said? What _could_ he have said that would've repaired the breach between them?

 _You're in everything I do._ The instinct to text _good morning_ before realizing the last such message was four weeks old. Looking for a missing shirt before remembering he'd left it at the loft. Sitting through a dull video call to Alicante and imagining Magnus making faces at the droning Clave officer from the couch, safely off-screen.

Imagining Magnus hearing the decision of the High Warlocks. Siding with the Seelie Queen had been a gamble, and now the chips had fallen.

Alec crumpled the thick, cream-colored sheet into a ball and threw it in the fireplace. He and Jace sat, equally clueless, on the office floor, until they had to go back to work.

The days went on. The weather grew teeth, winter closing in. Snow fell through his dreams, coming down between red lanterns, covering the faint footprints in the alley.

*

Izzy had just pinned Clary to the wall of the training hall when both their phones buzzed with an incoming message.

Clary wiggled the hand that wasn't pinioned under Izzy's fighting stick. As for her own sticks, Izzy had knocked them out of her grip a moment ago. "Should we get that?"

"It's not an Institute alert." Izzy almost managed to sound like she wasn't short of breath. For a girl who claimed she'd never done martial arts before last spring, Clary was several handfuls. Several grinning, attractively tousled handfuls, breathing hard under Izzy's hold.

"Sure you don't wanna quit while you're ahead?" Clary quipped. "It's three to one _now._ "

Also several handfuls of excessive self-confidence, Izzy amended her thought. "Bold last words, Miss Fairchild."

"We can start from three to one tomorrow. That's probably the same message for both of us."

Izzy stepped back to let Clary eel out toward their stuff, stowed in the safety of a bench. They were both off duty, which seemed to translate into training sessions lately. Clary had had her rune ceremony in the Council Hall in Alicante, and once they got back to New York she'd collapsed into Izzy's side and whispered, _I still have a million things to learn. Like fighting in heels. Tell me your secret. I swear I'll only use it for good._

Renewing her promise to teach Clary had been the only option. Getting to spend more time in Clary's close proximity was becoming a bonus, if not an unproblematic one.

"It's Luke," Clary said. "Asking if we've seen Magnus lately."

"Not since the party. We haven't needed a warlock here at the Institute, and I figured he wanted space. From Alec, really, but I'm not exactly unrelated to Alec."

"That's literally the case." Clary smiled out of the corner of her mouth. "Luke says Magnus hadn't mentioned leaving town." Her eyes widened. "I get not telling us right now, but he'd tell _Luke_ , wouldn't he? They go back ages."

"If Luke's asking us, he's already asked the warlocks." Alarm overtook the giddy, tense mood the spar had left Izzy in. "Anything else?"

"He's coming over. Something about a case he wanted Magnus's help with, so I guess we're the next stop." Clary's head snapped up. "Oh, crap."

"What is it?"

"I have the night off. Simon got a gig at this super cool new bar, and it's tonight. I promised I'd be there for moral support. You know how jittery he gets."

"I do." Izzy tried to think. Magnus was the most capable person she knew when it came to keeping himself safe. He was also prone to being taken by a mood, such as, if she were to guess, a post-breakup sulk somewhere remote, warm and private. There might be an innocuous explanation to his disappearance. "I'm about to go on shift, so I'll invite myself to this meeting Luke and Alec are no doubt going to have, and you go cheer Simon on."

"Teamwork saves the day." Clary scooped her into a one-armed hug. "Take notes for me, okay? Call if you need me."

Izzy let her arm rest around Clary's waist. "Tell Simon to break a leg. And that I'm sorry I missed it."

"You should be, a little. It's a really nice bar." Enthusiasm and concern mixed on Clary's face. She'd probably never get very good at boxing up her emotions nice and neat. "I'll take you some night, when we're sure nobody's missing."

Heat and hope—both totally, absolutely uninvited—swelled in Isabelle. "I get to pick your dress."

Clary rolled her eyes so nearly audibly that it might've echoed in the hall. "That's not even up for debate. See you later!"

She swung around on her heel and went. Izzy resolutely didn't watch her go.

*

Alec surfaced from the depths of demon sighting statistics when Izzy knocked on his office door. It was after office hours, so he was sprawled unprofessionally on the rug before the blazing fireplace. The Institute seemed chilly lately, though the evening outside was mild.

The first thing Izzy asked him was, "Have you checked your phone?"

He hadn't, because he'd wanted to focus on the work. Priority messages would set off an alert.

Grabbing his phone from the coffee table, she joined him on the floor. The soft worry in her eyes was a warning.

"Iz, what's wrong?"

Instead of answering, she handed him the phone, which showed a missed call and several messages, all from Luke's number. He read through them mechanically. Dread crept up his spine like rime on a window.

"I told the guard on duty to point Luke to your office when he gets here." Izzy's words came to Alec as if from a distance as he scrolled the messages back and forth.

He hadn't heard from Magnus in thirty-five days, not since Valentine's defeat. He'd drawn a line for himself and never crossed it. _You're a Shadowhunter; your first duty is always to the mission. Everything else is secondary. Everything else you can do without._

Magnus had shown him otherwise, and he could not forget, but he did know how to respect a boundary. Beyond that boundary, something had happened. Something that'd sent Magnus away, or worse, _taken_ him away.

"I called Raphael." Her voice went flat; she knew he didn't like the idea of any contact between her and Raphael. "He hasn't seen Magnus either."

"What about Catarina?" Alec put the phone down. Re-reading the words wouldn't change them. Magnus had left. Or he was _gone._ Which was worse?

"Not yet. I—" She stalled in her thought, her face twisted in dismay, and then Luke came in while she was looking for words.

Alec breathed in and out, like he'd been taught, and laid down a line for the anxiety churning in him. He needed answers. Luke would have, if not them, then a place to start looking.

They gathered around the coffee table. Izzy nipped down to the kitchen for tea while Luke, in his low, precise professional voice, talked Alec through the facts as he knew them. They were cold comfort in their brevity: to all appearances, Magnus had vanished without a word to anybody.

"You said there was a case." Alec halted his spin down the pit of his own worry. "Involving something supernatural?"

Luke straightened himself on the couch as Izzy came back, rattling mugs and a teapot redolent of bergamot. "We've had a rash of disappearances, mainly in western Brooklyn. Eight people reported missing in two weeks, and that's only those that officially came to my desk."

"All mundanes?"

"So far. No signs of conflict, no substance abuse issues. One kid had problems at home but the parents insist he didn't run away."

"That's not many in two weeks, so you mean these eight vanished in a particular way." Izzy stirred a vaguely alarming heap of sugar into her tea. Apparently sweet things helped her keep her head these days.

Luke threw her a half-amused look. "I was getting to that. Six of them definitely went missing between eleven p.m. and one a.m. Not out of the ordinary, but it's the one factor that connects them."

"Without conflict or resistance?" Alec bobbed his spoon between his thumb and forefinger, realized he was doing it, and dropped the spoon. Arms at sides, shoulders down, spine straight. _Breathe._

"It's like they just stepped off the map of their own will. Speaking of which, you know those little cold snaps we've been having? Not actual cold spells, just chilly nights."

"Haven't really noticed." Had Alec? He hadn't stopped to check how many layers his patrols put on before setting out. He'd hardly left the Institute, except for Alicante on two occasions.

"I did," Izzy said, "I left you a note in the demon stats. There's been a few snowy nights this month, and demon activity fell during every one of those. Which is weird—"

"Because overcast conditions should increase demon activity," Alec said. So much for staying focused on work. Now that he looked over to the file, there was a post-it note in her tidy, angular script stuck to the cover.

"If it was a demon, I'd expect some signs of violence," Luke put in. "Many of the common types like to kill slowly, and the rest kill messily."

"You've got some idea where these people vanished?" At Luke's nod, Izzy went on, "I'm not a warlock, but I can come with you and check the sites with at least the basic detection runes."

"That's another thing. You notice anything unusual about the warlocks recently?"

"We heard the High Warlocks dismissed Magnus from his post," Izzy said, with unflappable calm, even as Alec's temper surged. "Due to popular demand from the warlocks of the city. That's a lot of upheaval for them, on the warlock scale of things. Magnus had the job for—how many decades?"

"Long before I was born. Warlocks aren't a communal sort. I asked a couple of acquaintances about Magnus, and—" Luke paused. "They just stonewalled me. Both of them, separately."

 _What about Catarina?_ Alec had asked Izzy just before Luke entered. The worry—as opposed to surprise—on her face clicked the pieces together. She'd known the warlocks were reluctant to talk. Had she been trying to spare Alec, even though he'd inevitably learn the truth? Soften the blow, as if he couldn't take it.

He was up from his chair with phone in hand before his conscious mind caught up. Izzy started to say something, but Luke's hand on her shoulder intercepted her; by then Alec had hit the call button. Stepping into the corridor, he closed the door behind him.

The dial tone repeated itself for an agonizingly long time before Catarina picked up. Her voice was level and cordial. "Alec. What can I do for you?"

"You can tell me you've seen Magnus." He should reel himself in. Catarina _liked_ him, he was pretty sure, but Magnus had been her family for about ten of Alec's lifetimes. "I—I'm not trying to intrude, I swear, I know he doesn't want to see me. I just need to know he's okay."

"If you've been talking to Luke Garroway, I'm afraid I can't tell you anything more than what he's been told."

That was way too coordinated. Warlocks were solitary and reclusive, especially those who'd aged beyond a human lifespan; if Catarina, too, was blocking him, something shady was going on.

"He's not home, Cat." Was her nickname too familiar? Alec was past the point where he cared. "Look, I don't care about your warlock politics, I'm not gonna bother him, but..."

_Aren't you? Isn't this all a reasonable excuse to be involved with Magnus again somehow?_

The rough breath he drew must've echoed into the connection, because Catarina sounded both softer and steelier. "I'm sorry. I know you have a personal stake in this, but this is warlock business. High Warlock business, to be exact, and even if you were calling as Head of the Institute, Shadowhunters aren't privy to the warlocks' internal affairs."

 _A personal stake_ , she said, when Magnus's absence was a hook buried in Alec's heart, jerking at the end of a taut line.

"Can you at least tell me if he's okay?" Eight people—probably more—had gone missing under strange circumstances. It didn't seem like the kind of danger Magnus wouldn't know how to deal with, and yet.

Catarina's pause was too long. "If I hear from him, I'll let you know. If the Institute needs a warlock for a commission, you know who to call."

That was Catarina: sardonic, down-to-earth Catarina, who'd extended Alec her dry acceptance when Magnus had introduced them, and told unvarnished war stories over fine whiskey on Magnus's couch all night. She was talking as if Alec were a complete stranger.

He could've pressed the matter. Any number of his predecessors would've taken the warlocks' attitude as invitation to bring one in on whatever invented charges and interrogate them. The thought seared as he shoved it away, leaving a blistering track in its wake.

"Okay," he said to Catarina, hollowly, and hung up.

 _It's been thirty-five days,_ Alec thought, and _It's Magnus_ , and that was both a reassurance and a wrenching, tilting horror. _You were gonna leave well enough alone, remember? He doesn't want you. You have to stop needing him._

In the end, because he didn't know what else to do, he went back into his office.

"Tomorrow at sunset," Izzy was saying. "Thank you."

"Be careful in there." Luke grabbed his jacket from the back of the couch. "The motleys don't answer to the Court, but they're not bound by the Accords, either. You can't throw your weight around at the Market like you're used to."

Izzy's face twitched. "Trust me, I have experience with tricky Seelies. It's just that now that the Queen's shut the byways to the Seelie Court from all outsiders, my contacts aren't in a talkative mood."

They both turned to Alec as he stepped over the threshold. He shook his head, stalling their questions.

"Kensington, in an hour. Assuming Alec can spare you tonight," Luke said, mostly to Izzy, after nobody spoke for about five seconds. "Thanks for the tea."

"I'll be there." Izzy shifted her attention to Alec as Luke took his leave, squeezing Alec's shoulder in comfort as he went.

She hadn't known what Catarina would say, but she'd guessed. Luke had gone to the trouble of coming over himself, because he'd wanted to ease them into the news: wherever Magnus was, he didn't want to be found.

Or he'd run into something he couldn't handle, and couldn't even get them a message.

Alec held up a hand. "I can't do sympathy right now, Iz."

The curl of her lips didn't imply sympathy. "I was gonna say, what do you want to do?"

His fingers burrowed into the couch back until the supple leather creaked in complaint. There was only one answer.

"Find Magnus."

Unwavering, she waited.

"The missing persons might not be related to him, but this has magic written all over it." Wrapping his panic tight around this effort at reasoning, channeling it to work for him, Alec went on, "Warlock or Seelie magic. Either way we need more information. From two groups who definitely don't wanna talk to us."

His sister smiled like she was about to serve up a Jace-and-Izzy grade bad idea. "Then it's a good thing Luke gave me directions to a place where we can get anything, for a price."

*

Of course Isabelle had heard about the Hanging Market. You didn't grow up on the night side of New York City and not at least catch the name. While her parents' sternest interdictions might not have kept her from investigating further, the secrecy shrouding the Market had. It changed places at every new moon, or every full one, depending on who you asked. It was held under bridges and in parks, on disused lots and in deserted subway stations. Bringing together sellers and buyers of tools and trifles, vices and wonders, it was neutral ground, and its keepers guarded that neutrality fiercely.

She had Alec convinced in three sentences, which said more about his state of mind than the flinty facade he mostly held up.

Combing the sites of the disappearances—or best guesses at such, half the time—with Luke had yielded few results. You needed a warlock to track the magical energies in a larger area, let alone the fading traces left by an effect that was no longer there.

A warlock of sufficient skill would also be able to mask such energies. The man who'd taken over Magnus's duties, Lorenzo Rey, arrived some years ago from Madrid, didn't have nearly as warm an attitude toward Shadowhunters as Magnus did. However, if it turned out magic was involved and ordinary people were in danger, it'd become a matter for the Institute.

Irate fae on one side, the warlocks closing ranks on the other. That left less and less room for them to maneuver, and Alec's head seemed too muddled for the diplomatic powder keg the situation could become.

Izzy let all this stream through her thoughts as she watched him get kitted up. The circumstances aside, it was nice to be going into the field with him again. All they were missing was Jace, and it'd be like old times. It'd be like _last year._ Clary had stumbled into their lives only last spring, Izzy had to remind herself.

Enough time for an old enemy to rise and be defeated for good. Enough time for both her brothers to break their hearts, for her own to rattle in too many directions and bruise itself each time, for their world to shake in innumerable tiny ways.

Someone touched her arm, jerking her out of her thoughts. Clary tilted into Izzy's space, her new dual blades sheathed at her belt, a soft scarf peeking from the zipped-up collar of her jacket.

"Time for patrol?" Izzy pointed at Clary, as playful as she could. In the same second she remembered she'd meant to fill Clary in on the case, but it'd slipped her with how busy today had been. "Don't let Cartwright give you a hard time again."

"Not exactly." Clary's gaze skimmed Alec, who was runing the last of his arrows at one of the armory workbenches. "I want to come with you."

"Clary." A dozen plausible refusals leaped into Izzy's mind. She'd wanted to go alone, but Alec wouldn't be dissuaded, so now she was going to make sure _he_ did not antagonize an entire faerie market with some improbable _faux pas_. His restraint only had two states, on and off, and his attitude to this mission was squarely the latter. "We're not going on patrol."

"Alec's a pretty dead giveaway that you're not." Tension trembled under Clary's casual tone. "This has something to do with Magnus, right? If he's in trouble, I want to help."

"You can help by staying here and sticking to your schedule." His quiver filled, Alec turned to his other equipment. "We won't be long."

 _Hopefully_ , Izzy completed Alec's sentence. "It wouldn't hurt to have some more backup."

"First you wanna go on your own, and now somebody who's two weeks out of her rune ceremony is vital assistance? No offense."

"None taken." Clary shrugged. "At least if you let me come with you."

"She might be handy to have along," Izzy said. "We won't be able to bring our weapons in, so if things go sideways, I'd feel better if we had a quick exit."

"I _do_ make an excellent getaway car, if you don't mind walking a few extra blocks. I'm still working on aiming the portal." Clary smiled. It was convincing around her mouth, too tight around her eyes.

That concealed strain had decided Izzy. If Alec was striving toward their destination, Clary was striving _away_ from something. "Since when do we not enable our friends' stupid decisions to help our other friends?"

He fought the smile, or the shadow of one, like he used to give to Izzy, flickers of mirth that she'd learned to interpret as the equivalent of a face-cracking grin on other people. But it lingered, and that was more than she'd hoped for. "Fair enough. Stick close, Fray. I'm not gonna haul your ass out of the fire if you mess up."

"Didn't we just establish that was gonna be my job?"

"Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut, and maybe we'll all get back in one piece." Alec sounded a jot too harsh to be facetious.

"Hey." Izzy stepped into Alec's space. "We all want to find Magnus. Or help with Luke's case, or, best case scenario, both."

Under the hand she put on his arm, he relaxed. "I know. Let's go."

"C'mon." Izzy nudged Clary. "We'll take the standing portal, but it's a bit of a walk from the portal waypoint in Red Hook. I'll fill you in on the way."

Clary threw a last glance over her shoulder. "Bring it on."

*


	3. The Hanging Market

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The troublesome threesome visit a market and get in some trouble of their own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter before the holidays swallow me up! They should also include some writing time so I'm hopeful for the next chapter in early January.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's come along for the ride. Your enthusiasm is everything ♥ I'm on twitter @[juneofthepen](https://twitter.com/juneofthepen) and on tumblr @[poemsfromthealley](https://poemsfromthealley.tumblr.com/). If you want to tweet about this fic, the hashtag is #bitmfic !

*

The water to their right lay black as Clary, Alec and Izzy approached the abandoned grain terminal towering at the end of the canal. Lights dotted its side, white and gold and red, but the water reflected none of them. Clary squinted: along the side of the silos, jumbled structures had sprung up, wooden platforms joined by catwalks. The conglomeration was supported by huge, twisted roots that reached up to the silo tops.

The market had grown along the wall like vines, blooming with glamoured lights and ragged awnings. Noise drifted down, winding together shouting voices, musical instruments, and wares clinking and clattering. A deep drum beat thudded from somewhere farther above.

"Anybody afraid of heights?" She put false pep in her voice. "No? Great. Was this always here, or do I just remember this spot differently?"

"It's the Hanging Market," Izzy said. "You hang it from places. I heard they even put it at the top of a skyscraper once."

"You shouldn't believe everything you get from guys buying you drinks at the Hardtail." Alec, his old thunderhead impression in place, strode toward a corner of the terminal, where a root had formed a spiraling staircase leading up to the market proper.

"Casually hang it on random NYC landmarks," Clary said. "How does that mesh with keeping it secret?"

"It moves along tomorrow. That means we have one chance to get what we need, so, Alec—Alec!" Izzy swore quietly.

At the foot of the stairs, a barrel-chested Seelie with a bushy beard was receiving market-goers. Another fae, in burnished leather, her fox-red hair fading to white at the ends, handed him an axe, and with a flick of his fingers, it popped out of sight. They both fixed Alec with sidelong looks before Izzy could catch up to him. Clary hung back a step.

"What business do you have here, angel-spawn?" The Seelie woman cocked her chin. "Speak quickly before I tan your hides and toss you in the canal for the nightfish."

Over the walk and Izzy's explanation, Clary had figured that clue hunting at a night market sounded better than being cooped up in the Institute and diplomatically dodging—well, a few people, if she was honest.

She reassessed that when Alec stood to his considerable height, like he did when setting himself against some hidebound Alicante representative. "We're here for information."

" _Information,_ " the woman mimicked. "Aren't your minions all over the city? What could the Market _possibly_ offer Raziel's mighty offspring? More so, what can you offer that anyone here would want in trade?"

That hadn't been a total disaster of an opener, but he could do better. He should've done better.

"We mean no harm or disturbance." Izzy brought herself forward, holding out her whip bracelet. "We'll leave our weapons and follow your rules."

"There's no rule against Shadowhunters, is there?" Clary mumbled. Alec settled for stiff silence.

"That I'd like to see—nephilim walking humble among the Downworlders." The woman scoffed. To the side, the bearded Seelie watched calmly, but his eyes never left Alec. "How did you even know the Market was here?"

 _It is kinda conspicuous_ , Clary thought, but it was on the seaward side of the terminal, in an area that tended to be empty at night. No people, no demons preying on them. Institute patrols wouldn't see this area as a priority.

"We're trying to track down some missing persons." She detached her kindjal hilts from her belt and offered them to the gatekeeper. "They all disappeared at night, like something's stealing them right off the street."

She could hear the _That's Institute business_ and _What did I tell you about 'need to know'_ that Alec was going to aim at her any second.

"We know something about snatching away innocents, too," the woman said. "You're a bit fresh and pretty to have been there, but less than thirty years ago I'd have told you to go ask a nephilim."

"Rowan," said the gatekeeper.

The woman tossed her hair, crooking her finger at Alec. "One like him, maybe. He looks like the kind that'd enjoy plucking out warlock marks for sport."

Alec stood close enough that Clary saw him clamp his body down against the instinct to move. He needed to refute her _somehow_ , even if with violence that'd wreck all their chances to enter.

"You don't need to let us all in." Izzy moved swiftly in front of Alec. "I can go alone. We'll leave as soon as we have what we need."

"You want peace of the Market." The gatekeeper was barely taller than Clary herself, but he radiated presence like a sun-soaked rock face did heat, something old and solid and immovable. "You'll have it, children of Raziel, as long as you don't bring schism into the Market. Your weapons." He took her kindjals, and they blinked away. Izzy submitted her bracelet and backup blade, and Alec followed suit with his bow and arrows, still glaring.

"Oh, you old horror," Rowan said. "He's the clever one here. I'd have been happy to just take you down, but not him. He'll give you enough rope to hang yourselves by."

"Thanks for the tip." Clary tried to get some of Izzy's blithe air of _I could destroy you with my hands tied_ into her look. "You're blocking the stairs."

Rowan's amused gaze slid over her and to Alec. Then she bounded up toward the cornucopia of the market above.

*

Stepping onto the first platform, made of timber worn to a shine, brought a near sensory overload of smells, sights, and sounds. To Clary's left, a warlock whose bare arms shimmered like opal dust was haggling with a vendor for a vial that produced tiny animals made of crackling frost. They frolicked across the aisle, skittered up the sides of the stalls, and eventually melted into puddles. The next stall sold vegetable skewers and sauces whose aromas all made her mouth water.

It had to be a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad idea to eat food at this market, at least if she didn't want to spend the next hundred years as some Seelie's shop assistant. She ducked around a couple of werewolves cavorting to the tune of a willow-slender man playing a guitar.

She tried to keep up with Alec, who cleaved the crowd with efficacy, scouring the level for anything that might be useful as opposed to stupidly enticing. At least his focus was working _for_ them. The murmurs rising around them didn't seem to give him pause.

"Slow down a little," Izzy said. "They let us in, but it doesn't mean they won't chuck us over the side if you elbow the wrong Seelie."

"I don't wanna stay here any longer than we have to." Alec walked through a cloud of airy red dragonflies that blew from a covered stall, a few sticking to his hair like living, glittering pins. Clary peered under the awning and saw nothing but darkness.

"My problem is," she said, "how do we find the seller that's got what we need?"

"The Market has its information brokers. Just be careful with their prices." Izzy scanned the platform. "Alec, stairs, back there. Let's try farther up."

The second level was larger than the first, branching into perilous islets connected to the main platform by bridges of vines. Stranger smells that those of delectable food made the air thick to breathe.

"We should split up," said Alec. "Meet at the other end."

Clary bit back a comment. It might've been the _time_ to point out she didn't know what a Seelie information broker looked like, and that half the market was looking at them darkly, but whether it would've gotten through to Alec was debatable. "I'll take the left side."

Leaving the others to split the rest, she stepped around a stall that reeked of rot, full of polished animal bones and skeins of sinew, a shelf in the back holding vials of dark liquids. Cleaned hooves and horns were hung from its poles.

Even with the gruesome parts, she was glad to be out of the Institute. The Institute meant awestruck stares and too-pointed questions. It carried the danger of a call from Alicante when somebody on a task force or committee wanted to talk to her about the Incident at Lake Lyn, capital letters loud and clear. She'd told Alec she just wanted to be put on the duty roster; to his credit he'd done it. In the field people were too busy to try and ask her how it'd been to see Raziel in the heavenly flesh. Whatever manifest angels were made of.

She'd sworn to Jace she'd keep the wish a secret. He'd been adamant, but panic had leaked through. _No one can know, Clary. They'd lock you up. They might execute you. It's the Clave._

She did believe him. But the abstract concept of even a capital punishment paled next to the truth of him dead at her feet. She'd imagined Alec's and Izzy's faces when they saw his body, their horror and grief. It'd been too much loss for her to comprehend, and the solution hung in Raziel's words. It hadn't been a choice.

Like it wasn't a choice that the thing she'd felt for Jace at first, in all its thrill and verve, had settled into something different in her heart.

"Something I can get for you, flower? Something to lift that fog of sweet regrets around your fiery head, before you walk smack dab into my table?"

She jarred into a stop. Well in her personal space was a pinch-faced Seelie, his sleek black eyebrows reaching up into his thatchy hair. His ears were tipped with tufts of fur like a lynx's.

"Sorry," she said. "I guess I got lost in thought."

Next to the Seelie was a stall, cluttered with scholarly-looking articles: books, scrolls, loose sheets, with pens and inks and pigments arranged on the side nearest to her. "A common ailment, but a dangerous one in the Market. Especially for an angel-child."

"So I keep being told."

"No need for sharpness. You're looking for something. I make it my business to know that which seeks to be hidden, to lure secrets from their shadows. See?"

He pointed to a plaque above the stall that read, _The Dark of the Matter._

Clary quirked an eyebrow in what she hoped was an impression of skepticism. "Looks more like a second-hand bookstore to me."

"A story-seller never puts his best stuff on display. Those who know to ask for it, will."

"That sounds backwards as a marketing strategy." Her attention was drawn by the pots of paint on a corner of the stall. The colors looked surreally bright under the wind-swung lights.

"What would be the worth of a secret that everyone knows? To the right buyer, the very secrecy is what makes it priceless."

Clary reached to poke her fingertip in a pot of blue. It looked like she'd dipped her finger in the sky at summer dusk, the pigment rich and thick. What would you paint with color like this?

 _Joy_ , she thought in a swelling surge. The fierce and bittersweet joy of looking at the horizon and knowing you were going to cross it, step into the unknown and lay bare its mysteries. It was the color of opening a hidden door, of succeeding in a staff move, of pulling off a feat of daring.

She hadn't painted anything in so long. Her hand went to the brushes laid next to the pigments. Would her fingers remember?

"How much are these?" she heard herself ask.

"A reasonable price. A tiny truth for a pot of paint. A private morsel will buy you a brush."

"What about a secret?" She was here on a mission, not to relive her artistic longings. Her fingers could not seem to leave the brushes. They had to be real animal hair. That probably wasn't ethical. "What would a secret cost?"

"I could trade a secret for another. First you need to tell me what sort you're looking for, poppet." The Seelie had slipped into his stall. He was holding a book, its leather cover embossed with an image of entwined snakes. "The way to a lost treasure? The key to a reluctant heart?"

 _Seelies can't lie. All trades in the Market must be fair._ Clary repeated it like a mantra. A blue the color of daring. "I'm—I'm looking for a warlock."

"I've had three tonight. Have you a name for them?"

She said, without the consent of her better judgment, "Magnus Bane. I'm sure you've heard of him."

"The erstwhile High Warlock! The man who swore to bridge the mists! If you go up to the gambling alley, someone's putting money on his fate at the very moment."

Her heart jumped. "Do you know where he is?"

" _That_ is where it knots." He opened the book to a page filled with swirling script that rippled under his fingers. "Magnus Bane is a fellow much in demand. His whereabouts are a precious thing. Why would a stripling Shadowhunter be asking for them?"

Caught between juddering hope on one side and a garbled warning ringing in her head on the other, Clary tried to get her balance. She'd found the answer. Here was somebody who knew. It would only take a secret.

If she made it a bigger secret, she could buy the paint, too. A blue like the surface of the lake, with the light of the manifest angel above it—

Someone grabbed her by the shoulder, and she almost shoved a reflexive elbow in their ribs before there was the sting of a stele on the back of her neck and Izzy said, low, "Clary. Relax. I've got you."

The rune scored into her skin and split her fugue. If Izzy had risked using a stele—if Izzy was drawing runes on her without forewarning—it was serious.

She became aware of the secret-seller watching her quizzically. Izzy's hands fell away, leaving Clary standing on her own.

" _That_ is probably an answer you should give her something for." Izzy's voice had a healthy dose of dazzle in it. Clary let her come in front. "It's not a good idea to try and swindle your customers in the Market, is it?"

Sourness, chased by a steeply tilted smile, crossed the seller's face. "You're a quick one."

Clary blinked hard, bent toward Izzy's shoulder. As she wiped the blue from her fingers on the side of the stall, they tingled as if with a renewed blood flow. She felt spinny. Izzy was solid and comforting next to her.

"Good find," Izzy whispered to her, "but let me take it from here. Alec's over to your right. Do me a favor and make sure he doesn't do anything stupid."

Izzy wanted Clary away from the stall. In the field she followed Izzy's cues. "I'm gonna have an eye on you, too." She'd promised to be their ticket out of here.

"I'm counting on it." Izzy's eyes flashed with warmth. Sweeping the crowd for Alec, Clary sloughed off the lightheaded feeling.

*

It figured that Clary had found the stall Izzy had had in her sights. She'd never been _to_ the Hanging Market, but she'd forearmed herself with knowledge. That included the likeliest places where they could ask how to find a warlock in the wind, who probably wanted very little to be found.

It also kind of figured that Clary had walked right into a Seelie spell at that stall. Putting a mind shield rune on her in semi-plain view hadn't been in Izzy's plan, but it'd keep her safe for a few minutes—and after that, Alec would, the Angel willing.

Izzy could taste blood on the inside of her lip. Worrying it with her teeth had become a nervous habit. Salt and iron, right there, to ward her against the restless dead and the fair folk.

"Such distrust!" said the Seelie in the stall. "As if I was going to stew her in a pot and gobble her up when she was nice and tender."

"As if you weren't busy putting a charm on her when I got here," Izzy shot back with the same pleasant frothiness. The _spiritum_ rune under her sleeve made half the items on display thrum blue. "Want a moving target this time?"

"Is your question still the same? The most wanted warlock in the city?"

"I need to know where Magnus Bane has gone."

"As it happens, I'm privy to that tidbit." He rooted around under the stall and came up with a square of cloth. "Here it is."

It was a lace-hemmed handkerchief, the linen worn translucent, embroidered in fine silver thread. She could make out a city map, showing the delicate angles of streets and squares. Spread on top of the stall, it looked like a scrap, but its edges swam blue in her sight. It held genuine enchantment.

"Look closely, plum. This is the city in the winter mists. The one beyond the bridge, from before it was swallowed whole."

Wishing for a _nyx_ rune instead, Izzy stared at the grid of the streets. The contour of the water body at its edge it was familiar. "This is Brooklyn."

"So it is! And is not. It's where your wandering warlock was last seen. Though the _when_ of it is a little fuzzy, since he's—ah, but we haven't talked prices yet." He coiled back under the awning.

From the crowd, Alec circled into Izzy's sight, Clary beside him, though he still looked one provocation short of violence. It was too close to his default these days.

Some days Izzy thought it was worse than when Valentine had captured Jace. Then Alec, and thus all of them, had had the thread of their runic connection. Now there was nothing to go on: no farewell letter, no ransom demand, and therefore, for Alec, no terms of surrender. He'd beat himself to death against a glass that wouldn't give.

This was the first real lead she had. She couldn't lean on Shadowhunter authority here. Even her presence bordered on insult, and out of their party she was the only one with any Seelie etiquette under her belt.

"You'll tell me where to find Magnus Bane and how to get there myself. Name your price."

The seller leaned in, conspiratorial, too close. "This here, my mourning dove, is a map to Brooklyn-in-the-Mists, and the byways that go from here to there. One of a rare few that exist. Without it you'll never find your way."

 _Byways._ The hidden paths of the Shadow World, snaking between realms. She held a breath and then released it. Luke had said, _It's like they just stepped off the map of their own will._

It was because they _had_ stepped off the map. In the silence of her mind, Izzy let the thought take shape. _Those missing people are in another realm. And so is Magnus._

"What do you want for the map? And the instructions how to use it." She licked away the blood beading on her lip. Would it work like an iron nail in her pocket? She'd danced and flirted and fooled around with the fae ever since she was old enough to sneak out at night, but she'd never needed anything from them. Not like this.

“All I ask for it is one little secret. A _true_ secret. One you haven’t told a soul.”

She looked at the spread handkerchief. Then, powerless to stop herself, at her brother.

Love like that was terrifying. Maybe she just didn't know. She loved her family with a certainty, like the fact that the sun rose, the orbital mechanics of it never in question. Alec had slipped out of a stable system, a planet careening off without a star. That was the only part of his feelings she truly understood. She'd do anything to realign his course.

_A secret you haven’t told a soul._

Alec needed to fight for Magnus, and she would fight for Alec until her last breath. She said to the seller, low and clear, "I’m not the most important person to anybody in the world."

If her next breath felt like a fist around her windpipe, well, Alec was worth it. He always was.

*

Alec knew he was sticking out like a sore thumb. They all were, but at least Izzy and Clary were short enough to be covered by the crowd. Each stare picked at his strung nerves and each dismissal wound them tighter. _Warlocks are a dime a dozen in these parts, handsome. Though word about town is that you lost yours. Looking for a replacement so soon?_

When Clary found him, her face was a relief. Not a minute after, she began sprouting questions, meant to fill silence until Izzy got back from securing whatever information she'd found. He gave one-word answers, but at least Clary wasn't trying to rile him up.

"What's the deal with all the food?" she said. "Isn't eating faerie food a universally bad idea?"

Facts of life she'd missed growing up a mundane, item seven hundred and thirteen. "Not if you pay for it. Seelies can only trap you if you breach a contract in some way."

She perked up. "Think they'll take my money?"

"Only if they're desperate." He stifled an urge to tap his foot at Izzy. She was much more at home here than he'd ever be, charming the charmers, and still he wanted to tell her to hurry it up. The whole market thought it had one up on him. The High Warlock's jilted lover, looking for him in the shady corners of the Downworld.

 _What am I doing?_ It wasn't the first time the thought struck him. He brushed it away, like he did every time. _If I don't do this, then what can I do? What's the other option?_

"Hey," said Izzy, appearing beside him. "I got it. Where's Clary?"

The first part jolted him so he forgot to answer the second. "Yeah?"

"Not here. I'll tell you once we're on the ground."

It took every ounce of discipline in him to follow her as she picked up Clary and a stuffed paper bag of food near the stairs, and then down to the waterfront, where the gatekeeper returned their weapons and bade them good night. Alec scarcely grunted at him. Izzy led them on until the din of the market had melted into the noises of the city itself.

Alec clung to his restraint when she stopped. Only now he saw, under the streetlights, the tension in her frame. She found a bench at a bus stop and pulled something from her pocket.

Clary clustered in. "That looks a handkerchief map. Like they used in World War II. Did that skeevy paint seller give it to you?"

"It's something better," Izzy said, clearly ignoring her question. "It'll take us to Magnus, if we're fast enough. Have you got the time?"

"Um, half past midnight?"

Alec cut Clary off there. "Tell me everything."

The object in Izzy's hands was a map embroidered on thin, aged linen. He picked up the shape of Brooklyn on it at a glance.

Izzy said, "Alec. There are risks. You know that."

"Can I please worry about those after you tell me what that is?"

Bending her head, she whispered a phrase in her fine Latin accent, and spot on the linen lit up, like the embroidery were made of flickering light. "This is a byway map. It shows paths to other realms."

Clary gasped. Alec held in the pressure in his chest and made himself listen.

The thread shone through Izzy's fingers while she talked. Shadowhunters mostly worried about the mortal world, but he understood the metaphysics well enough for Izzy's explanation. He drank in the details she had with parched purpose.

There was a shadow city, a mirror city, tucked into a nearby fold of reality, that sometimes brushed against the mortal realm. She'd bartered for the map, and there was an open byway barely half a mile from their current location.

They could go, if they went right now.

"That sounds fine and dandy," Clary said with the conviction of somebody who'd grasped half the story at best. "What's the catch?"

Maybe a little more than a half. Izzy spoke on. "There's a time window. The realm can only be reached for two hours around midnight. If we don't take this byway, there's no guarantee when the next one will open."

"Meaning that light's gonna go out soon." Clary glanced at her phone. "In thirty-one minutes, give or take a few seconds."

The damp night slithered under clothing, turning their exhalations into pale vapor as they huddled over the enchanted handkerchief. Clary paused, but the idea on the tip of her tongue was palpable.

The Institute had its thousand concerns, from the veteran with the broken leg to the Shax nests in the Bronx subway tunnels that needed to be cleared, requisitions and payrolls and morale that was up or down this week, the withdrawn warlocks and the werewolves shaking the borders of their territories. Alec knew all that. The matters of the Institute were a never-ending refrain in his head.

They were always waiting to sweep him up. In time he could drown himself in them.

"I'm gonna make a call," he said.

Two calls, actually. Izzy was his second-in-command, and after that authority would pass to his senior officers. Underhill was most likely to take this in his stride.

Jace picked up with a sleep-muffled " _What?_ " but in the five seconds Alec spent choosing an opener, he went on, more softly, "Hey. What's up?"

Having an open line to another person's emotions was the best and worst thing. Alec had had half his life to learn that. With the squirming mess of thoughts that was his brain right now, he'd forgotten to temper what bled into the bond.

"Izzy found a way for us to get to Magnus, but we've got to go now." Reception was probably nonexistent in a parallel realm. It'd still be _Brooklyn_ , if Izzy's information—Seelie-certified as it was—was good, but Alec didn't think cell signal would carry.

"Where are you? I'll be there in five." A clash sounded as Jace dropped some part of his weaponry on the floor, scrambling to get ready.

Alec closed his eyes and felt the ready rush of worry and determination in the bond. Jace had been so closed off in the last weeks, never hostile, but reluctant. The contrast, his unstinting resolve to come to Alec now, was a balm. "Don't. You won't make it, and they're gonna need you at the Institute. I need you there, to keep an eye on things."

"You're straight up telling me you're taking Izzy on a chase and leaving me at home? Asshole."

 _I'll do you one worse. I'm taking your sorta ex-girlfriend and leaving you behind._ A part of him objected to bringing Clary along, untried and overeager as she was, but she was who he had at hand. She was also the one with the ward-piercing angelic portal, which meant that if they landed in hot water on their extra-dimensional jaunt, she'd be their most viable chance of escape.

"Yeah," Alec said, "I deserve that. You can kick my ass when we get back."

This was the moment when Jace would fight him. He braced himself. It wasn't ever about not _wanting_ his brother there, not even when their relationship had been at its lowest. If he had to leap into the unknown with anybody at his side, Jace would always be it. And Izzy. He did have Izzy.

Jace said, "How long do I wait until I come get you?"

The bond went still. They'd always been able to create their own quiet, a calm in the eye of the storm—something Alec didn't imagine he could ever explain to anybody not Jace. "You're in a hurry. Give me enough that I can help you if you need it, Alec."

He did, and Jace listened in silence, which said everything about the gravity of the situation. Alec let his gratitude run freely. "Give me twenty-four hours."

"You go over by a fucking minute and I'm gonna raise hell."

 _I know,_ Alec thought, and the certainty that Jace knew _that_ echoed in his bones.

He left Underhill the least welcome wake-up message in Institute history, with his apologies and the postscript that Jace had the details. As he rejoined the girls, Clary held out a bunch of pastries wrapped in paper napkins, and, shrugging philosophically, he stuffed them in his pocket. Nourishment runes might need a little help where they were going.

If he let himself think about it—about diving headlong onto a path to another _world_ —he'd freeze. The byway would close, and Magnus might slip out of his reach for good.

"How much time?" he asked. The map shone around a marker designating an old elevated rail station, picked out in stitched serif typeface.

"Twenty-two minutes." Izzy tapped her thighs where her stele and seraph blade rested. That familiar gesture, her checking her equipment, bolstered him absurdly.

" _Brooklyn-in-the-Mists_ sounds pretty pompous." Clary inhaled half a pastry in between sentences. "We should figure out something snazzier. Brooklyn Below? Nah, that's cliché. Brooklyn Beside? Brooklyn Slightly to the Left?"

"Can you focus?" A laugh caught in Alec's throat.

"We can rename the mystical realm when we get there," Izzy cut in. "First we have a train to catch."

It began to snow. They left a trail through the slush as they ran.

*

The locomotive screeched and swayed into a halt, its wheels striking sparks from the track. The wind bore the steam from the engine into his face, fine ash mixing into the falling snow.

The shapes of roofs rose through the snow: water tanks and empty clotheslines sketched out in shifting strokes. On the street below, vendors cried and children scampered, their voices hollow and dreamlike. A rattling conveyance cut a line through them.

A few passengers-to-be populated the platform, their wind-bitten figures wrapped in overcoats and shawls. None of them appeared to notice the stopped train. No one boarded it. It wasn't a thought that'd strike any of them ever again.

Magnus dropped down from the end of the carriage, and felt a foolhardy satisfaction as his feet hit the platform.

He was one step closer.

*


End file.
